


All Guns Blazing

by dinoburger



Category: Khonjin House (Web Series)
Genre: Alcohol, Gen, Gun Violence, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Reality Bending, Temporary Character Death, Time Loop
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-07
Updated: 2018-01-07
Packaged: 2019-03-01 15:00:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13297332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dinoburger/pseuds/dinoburger
Summary: some KH shorts, mostly focussing on Gino and Gilmore





	1. Accident

**Author's Note:**

> suck it connor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cheap wine and stupid ideas.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one's a little old buuuttt I wanna have at least some semblance of chronological order... not a lot happens, mostly chit-chat.
> 
> there will definitely be more intense chapters than this. and I'll need to add more warnings as I go.

Illuminated by the streetlight, Gino stood in front of the pizzeria. He blearily fumbled with his keys, distracted as he went about locking up.  
  
"Fancy seeing you here." The voice in his ear made him jolt.

Having appeared from the night, Gilmore's immense presence and cool gaze made the shorter man shrink back even further.  
  
"Boss, I, I was just closin' shop..." he explained, gripping his keys.  
  
"How about you and I go back inside instead, and have a little talk." The Boss suggested.  
  
Gino's brow wrinkled. "Um. Okay."  
  
When they entered, the place was only lit by the soft glow from outside and a display fridge full of drinks. Gino walked ahead to get the lights, enough to reveal the counter and the wall behind, leaving the rest shrouded in night. Gilmore hopped up on a bar stool and settled in, crossing one leg over his knee.  
  
"Can, can I get you a drink? Like uh, wine?" the little man offered, tapping his fingertips together.  
  
Gilmore sighed. "Alright, I could use one right about now."  
  
Gino disappears into the back room for a moment and returned with a wine glass and bottle. Cheap stuff, Gilmore assumed, knowing Gino.

The Boss also made note that Gino had only brought one glass, with a straw in it, which he poured out in front of him. Gilmore sipped tentatively from his straw as Gino took an unceremonious swig from the bottle.  
  
"Anything in particular you wanted to talk about?" Gino started, seating himself opposite.  
  
"Hm." Gilmore looked down at the counter for a moment before answering. "How is Khonjin going?"  
  
"Oh, he seems okay. He's enjoying himself I guess."  
  
"And that chef of yours..."  
  
"Hm?"  
  
"He's been treating my boy properly, has he?"  
  
"Well uh, yeah. They're both pretty damn happy together." an odd sort of smile tugged at Gino's lips. "Nothin' better than being young and in love."  
  
"I still don't know if I trust him." Gilmore squinted.  
  
"Spag? He's one of ya guys, I don't know why ya wouldn't." Gino took another swig of wine. "Maybe he can't tell a pizza from his own asshole but he's full 'a spirit and loyal like a dog."  
  
Gilmore thoughtfully slurped some more wine. He wasn't particularly fond of drinking and preferred having his wits about him, however there would be little use for them in the presence of someone like Gino.  
  
Gino considered him for a while. "How about you then?"  
  
"What about me?"  
  
"You uh, got your sights on anyone? Any new lovers?" Gino gave him a teasing grin.  
  
Gilmore shook his head. "I have better things to do than fool around, there's nobody I'm all that interested in anyway."  
  
"Seriously? I mean, look at 'cha, a man like you could get all sortsa women. You know, you're well-off, powerful... handsome."  
  
His head was getting warmer and fuzzier than Gilmore was used to at this point. It didn't take a lot either.  
  
"Why does it matter to you, fucko?"  
  
Gino shrugged. "Dunno. Guess it's easy to envy a guy with a lot going for him."  
  
Gilmore straightened. "How about you then, hot-shot? Gotten any love lately?"  
  
"What, me? HAH!" Gino scoffed. "Nobody's interested in me. Apart from those kids, the only person who pays me any mind is you."  
  
"...Huh."  


"Oh yeah, and don't think I haven't noticed how you always show up at the worst 'a times. It's like your little power fetish thing."  
  
Gilmore's nose wrinkled. "My what."  
  
Gino leaned across the counter, smirking wickedly. "You get off on pickin' on guys like me, dontcha? You like to make me squirm, messing with me when I ain't expecting it. You like having that sorta power over people..." he ran his tongue over his teeth, inching closer with every word.  
  
"...Don't you, Master?" Gino breathed, so close now that he was practically climbing over the counter.  
  
Gilmore could feel the tips of his ears burning, could feel the words prickling against his spine.  
  
"Just admit it. Say that you do..."  
  
Gilmore shivered. Gino was getting far too cocky for his own good but Gilmore couldn't quite articulate, he was completely preoccupied by how close the smaller man was, that smug, knowing face filling his vision.  
  
"Fratelli..." is all he can mutter.  
  
"Say it..." Gino whispered, Gilmore feels the words on his lips, ghosting a kiss.  
  
He let Gino push into him, he lets those stubbled cheeks graze him, tastes cigar smoke on his tongue. It was irresistibly warm.  
  
Gino clumsily, drunkenly explored his boss's mouth. Once he was satisfied, he pulled back to admire Gilmore's flushed features, staring dreamily.  
  
The boss stumbled to his feet. "I shouldn't be here..." he mumbled.  
  
"Going so soon?" Gino chuckled, as Gilmore beat a hasty retreat. "See ya later booooosssss!" he crowed, laughing while the other escaped into the night.  



	2. Evening

You didn't like where this was heading, so you took out your gun, raised it and prepared to make your next move.  
  
He placed a hand on top of yours. You looked up at him, his broad armless shoulders, a tall thick figure hovering over you. A disembodied white glove stood out from the darkness cast over his face by his tophat, holding a finger to his lips.  
  
You caught a glint of fearful understanding in his eye. He grabbed you by the shirt and pulled you back and out, out through the door, out into the alley.  
  
You go where he leads you, wordlessly. He's the brains, you're just the extra fire-power.  
  
He wouldn't let you go for a second. Your far shorter legs scurried to keep up and it's all you can do not to trip up completely as you stumbled and lagged behind him. He made you stop only to check that you're not being followed.  
  
Both of you were breathless, you're both getting older.  
  
The night air was cool on your sweat drenched skin. The dark figure ahead of you weaved through buildings with such certainty, and disoriented you tried to focus on moving.  
  
It's the dead of morning when you creep back with him into the apartment. Without the void of city to soak up the sound your gasping breaths seem much louder. So do his.  
  
Neither of you touched the lights as you snuck back into his bedroom.  
  
You collapsed onto his bed, while he set aside his hat and put away his things.  
  
He sat heavily beside you. His form was revealed only by the city glow through the curtains, head hung forward, hair loose.  
  
"Now what?" you asked him.  
  
"Now... we just lay low." he was still recovering from the hasty trip here as he spoke. "We... can't go anywhere else tonight. I'll figure out our next move in the morning." Gilmore let out a long, weighted sigh, his whole body slumped.  
  
You laid your arm across his shoulders and patted his back, feeling it resonate in the hollow of his chest. You rubbed circles into him with the flat of your hand.  
  
He shifted his weight to lean against you, and you let your fingers slide up and lace with his hair.  
  
"Sorry that tonight didn't work out so good." you mumbled into him.  
  
He looked up at you with those dark, tired eyes under a mess of hair.  
  
"If... if there's anything I could do to make up for it..." you smiled, and he kept eye contact.  
  
There wasn't a lot of space between the two now, both were quite aware, but not uncomfortably so. Somehow, that space was just getting smaller and smaller.  
  
"I... can think of one thing."  
  
There was a delicious apprehension, your heart beating as you moved in. A pause, a slight retreat, just to reconfirm. Just a split second to feel the atmosphere, and feel sure, before losing yourself in him.  
  
No light nor sound distracted from the kiss. Nothing more existed but for your two beings intertwined, in a space that seemed not to be.  
  
The kiss breaks, but you wanted to push your luck and dived back in, unable to help yourself from stealing his lips and holding on tight. When you break again, you cut him short a third time and its like you're trying to squeeze every bit of passion into him.  
  
When at last, you let him go he said, "Maybe this night wasn't a total loss, after all."  
  
You gave him a dizzy smile, while he got to undressing for bed. You did the same, peeling off your shirt only to realise how strong the smell of your exertions must be. He didn't seem deterred, so you weren't about to bring it up.  
  
The bed was big enough for the two of you to sleep in without so much as touching, but he gave you a glance over his shoulder and hummed in content when you scooted up close and wrapped your arms around him.  
  
With the unforgiving nature of your work, the security is much welcomed. It's been a very strange night.


	3. Taking Advantage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gay Spaghetti is concerned.

Gay Spaghetti gently cleared his throat to catch Gino's attention, peering out from the doorway behind the counter.  
  
"What?" Gino snapped.  
  
"Could I ah, have a word?" the chef fidgetted, lowering his head to better meet Gino's glare.  
  
"I'm all ears." his boss leaned back on the bar stool.  
  
"I ah, I mean 'a in private." the flicker of his gaze seemed to gesture towards the back room.  
  
The little man sighed and hopped off his seat, following his employee into the dimmer, dirtier recesses of the store.  
  
With them both standing evenly, the height difference was painfully obvious.  
  
Gino folded his arms. "Okay, so what is it?"  
  
Tugging at one hand with the other, the chef started. "I 'a heard from 'a Khonjin some, some interesting things about... you and 'a the boss?"  
  
The frown lines on Gino's face deepened into a snarl. "How the fuck is that any of your buisness?"  
  
"It's not, I 'a know." Gay held open his hands defensively. "What 'a I mean is... last time I checked, you were 'a just as scared of Gilmore as me! I wanted to make 'a sure that he's not... taking advantage?"  
  
"Of course I ain't letting him take advantage, what sorta idiot do you think I am?!" Gino wouldn't look him in the eyes, seeming to hunch in on himself.  
  
"...even the most 'a smartest genius can 'a find themselves in a compromising position." the chef reasoned.  
  
"We shouldn't be having this conversation, I'm your fucking boss!" Gino threw out his arms in frustration.  
  
"Well ah, he is yours. And you fucked him." Gay Spaghetti stated.  
  
Gino gaped at him. "...I...it's, it's not like that..." he mumbled.  
  
"I'a don't care. What'a matters to me is that'a you're okay." he asserted.  
  
"...you're really worried about that?" he asked, in quiet disbelief.  
  
"Gino... you're like'a family to me now." Spaggers put his hands on Gino's shoulders. "And if'a that man is'a giving you any'a trouble...!" his voice raised, before Gino brushed him off and waved him away.  
  
"I'm fine. It's all fine. So don't waste any more time on it, alright?"  
  
Unconvinced, Gay Spaghetti held his hands with loose wrists and tilted his head. "You'a worry me sometimes Gino. It's'a no good mixing'a love and'a buisness."  
  
"Spag, you're a fraction of my age. You're a fucking foetus compared ta me. I can god-well handle it!"  
  
A little hurt, he retorted "Oh yeah, like'a you always handle the boss so well--"  
  
"I ain't havin' it no more! This conversation is over!" Gino turned heel and stormed back to the counter, bellowing "AND GET BACK TA WORK!"  
  
Gay Spaghetti watched him leave, before letting out an indignant huff and returning to the kitchen.


	4. Oh Happy Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I just love weddings and funerals and things...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...admittedly it is a little cliche, embarrassingly so almost. I think my main inspiration for this one is the song "Happy Days" by GHOST.

It's a stock photo wedding picture. The grass is green, the sky is blue, the scene around is a perfect still-frame dressed up in white.  
  
But it's not just any stock photo.  
  
There are no generic models posing in this picture, there is no typical bride and groom standing at the alter. Because, instead, its me and you.  
  
There's a man with dark, greased back hair. For once his round, flabby face is clean-shaven and his outfit finally buttons around his wide middle. There's a man who, even standing at his stunted height, feels like one of the tallest there. He is tall and proud in a clean white tuxedo, accented with purple and gold.  
  
That's me, smiling from ear to ear and with tears in my eyes because this must be heaven.  
  
And the man next to me, beneath that well-trimmed moustache, he's smiling too.  
  
His dark eyes glimmer with fondness, adorned in his usual well-loved tophat, and a tuxedo with a darker colour scheme to match, black bowtie and purple jacket.  
  
The frizzy-haired priest, wearing his usual absent smile and headband is sqwaking out something akin to a marriage ceremony.  
  
From this patchwork of odds and ends, there's almost the beginnings of a future. Something resembling hope, something resembling change.  
  
I can't believe I'm standing at the center of it all.  
  
It's with perfect comedic timing that behind the groom, with a flourish of black robes a figure swoops in, a disney villain copy-pasted into an otherwise perfect scene.  
  
The daylight flashes on the dark grey shaft of his handgun. My heart drops.  
  
The clueless groom gives me a look of innocent confusion, before all hell breaks loose.  
  
A gunshot rings out. A white tuxedo splatters red. The nefarious villain has returned.  
  
My vision goes black.  
  
I am back, exactly where I should be, in a grease-stained bed. By the time I'm at the pizzeria, that ever mocking, ever tantalizing image of happiness fades into background noise.  
  
It's nonsensical, the same sort of nonsense that everything in this world is made of. I have no reason to hold onto it.  
  
Not for several years later, not until I've already fallen in love with you all over again.  
  
And it's almost suddenly that I find myself back in that stock photo wedding. Stuck in the middle of a dream I can scarcely believe is happening.  
  
One of the grooms, with impeccable timing, goes wide-eyed. He starts breathing shallow and short.  
  
As his concerned spouse turns to him, he sees sunlight flash off the dark grey shaft of a handgun as it emerges from the jacket of a white tuxedo.  
  
The smaller man's grimace becomes a stream of careless, ragged laughter as tears flood down his pale, shaven face.  
  
His husband-to-be is an oasis, a shimmering illusion of hope threatening to disappear.  
  
The scene breaks out in gunfire. Through a blurry torrent of despair, the remaining groom sees a figure take aim, with hair as red as his new suit.  
  
And again.  
  
After months of preparing, time and time again, when he should have seen the signs, Gino only recognizes this same scenario once he's bang in the middle of it.  
  
As the ceremony goes on around him, he forces his smile in place. But his eyes start to grow heavy with defeat.  
  
Gilmore can't understand the look that his husband-to-be gives him, why does that smile seem so... off? Like he's... broken.  
  
His face scarcely changes as he reaches his hand into his white suit jacket. Gilmore tenses at the sight of the dark grey handgun.  
  
Giving him a look of deep remorse, Gino presses it to his head.  
  
Gilmore goes very pale as a cacophony erupts around them. He can only wheeze as if all the air had been forced out of his lungs.  
  
"Gino, stop!" a boy's voice cries out, and it's the last thing that enters his head before-  
  
...nothing.  
  
Everything drops back to zero.  
  
The harsh steps of shoes on pavement travel down the familiar streets of Nickville, where they arrive at the pizzeria.  
  
Khonjin slams open the glass door. Gino is in the middle of wiping down the counter when he's grabbed roughly by the shoulders.  
  
"What the-"  
  
"Would it kill you not to sabotage everything at the last minute, Gino?!" Khonjin wails.  
  
"The fuck are you on about?"  
  
"I know that it's not always your fault, I know it's not always going to work out!" he continues ranting, "but you have to try, otherwise it never will!"  
  
"...I don't know what the hell that means."  
  
Khonjin throws up his hands. "Forget it! Forget it, you're just going to keep making your own life hell, and there's nothing I can do to stop you!" he fumes, stomping back the way he came in.  
  
"...You aren't even gonna order ya pizza?" Gino asks, bewildered.  
  
"NOPE. NOT IN THE MOOD." he slams his way out again.


	5. Red Rose

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> some time passes... almost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was listening to "A Sardine Grows From the Soil" on a loop while writing this, believe it or not

I looked down at a body, riddled with bullet holes and from the wounds saw a vision of dark red roses. Their velvet petals spreading open and concealing the injuries, even as the stains soaked through.

I almost believed that I had become something else, more than this flesh, more than a body draining of life and too damaged to move.

How many times have I watched this body, torn apart, split open, punctured by ammunition, engulfed in flames and dispersed into nothingness, how many times have I died? And for how long have I suffered?

It’s not poetic, it’s senseless. There’s nothing beautiful in meeting such an end, drenched in sweat, growing paler by the second, eyes sunken and reeking of death.

And yet, in this vision, from this bloated corpse, red roses bloomed.

I’ll be gone, far gone, before my body is remembered, exactly how it was at the start.

How much time has passed since I was brought here? How long will I last this time? Forever reminded of my mistakes, forever doomed to die, I let go of my fears.

I hold onto you tight.

After being cut loose so many times, from my body, from my head, from “me”, I wonder: am I changing? I feel something in my chest, a swell of warmth. Sometimes it only hurts because of how we refuse to be any different.

This time, I don’t move away as the thorns prick at my fingers, wrapped in vines. Buried in your lavender hair.

I hold my breath, waiting for the end.

Impossibly, time seems to pass. Impossibly, we grow older. Each increment is a threat towards the end.

Without being thrown back, my hair is getting thinner, wispy where it was once thick. Your son, he’s grown too. Taller now, the scruff on his face is laughably starting to resemble mine.

I idly wonder if this time may be my last, suddenly afraid of being cut short. If this comes to an end, all too soon, then what will be left of me? If I never get to start over, then will I be a different man than the one I was at the beginning?

I was once unafraid to die, or I felt so little that I couldn’t care. Whatever became of me, so be it. I was fed up of the world already, so tiny and closed in as it is. There is nowhere to escape to, nowhere but the release of death, I believed.

I thought of the people here as nothing more than tools of my torment.

That was what I believed. But if I am no longer that “me”, the one made to suffer at the hands of a childish god - who has long since grown into a man, a man with other things on his mind - then who’s to say that it still holds true?

Ignoring the meaning it was given, the meaning any of it has, where does that leave us? To let the world simply exist, without intending harm, with nothing but it’s own chaos, is oddly liberating.

Still, when I expect it least, with a deafening cry, a dark red rose blooms in my chest.

All while shaking from the shock of pain, I reach into my pocket and light a cigar. The world around me comes in and out of focus, as I feel heavier and heavier.

I stagger out through the back of the pizzeria, the Nickville sky overhead being colored by evening, and a man I don’t recognise at first is standing there.

Growing weaker, I sit down on the pavement, and let my back rest against the pizzeria’s wall. He sinks down to my level, he tells me in a quiet but urgent tone that I need to get to a hospital.

I shake my head and tell him that it’s okay.

It’s not okay, but I’m scared to leave.

Reluctant, he sits down beside me, pulling his knees to his chest.

I lean back and tilt my head to watch him, as he glares ahead at nothing. He folds in on himself. I hear him start to cry.

Breathing out a puff of smoke, I limply put out my cigar on the pavement. I weakly lay my other hand on his shoulder.

When he looks up, it’s as if he’s shrunk back to a fifteen year old boy again.

He grabs hold of me, burying his face in my chest, even though it’s dampened and stained. All I can see is tufts of red hair, the last sensations I feel are his hands, clutching onto me and his head pressing into me.

And then I disappear.


End file.
